November 6, 2018: As a member of the Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassadors Program, I had the privilege of traveling with eight other educators to Chile in June. We toured the NSF-funded telescopes at Cerro Tololo (near the coastal town of La Serena) and the radio dishes of ALMA (near the desert town of San Pedro de Atacama). We also visited a few tourist observatories in Santiago, Vicuña, and San Pedro.
I took hundreds of pictures (of course). Here are a few of my favorites.
First stop: Santiago! View of Santiago, with the Gran Torre Santiago building (856′) in the background and the bicyclists with telescopes (in Parque Bicentenario) in the foreground.
Next stop: La Serena! Back to front: Kyle, Samara, Eileen, Nicolle, Charles, Yasmin.
View of the Milky Way and its reflection on the dome of the 4-m Victor Blanco Telescope on Cerro Tololo.
Cacti at 7500′ point the way to the telescopes on Cerro Pachon.
Last stop: San Pedro de Atacama! Here’s the whole group (L to R): Steve, Kyle, Tiffany, Moiya, Samara, Yasmin, Nicolle, Eilene, Shari, and John. Photo by Ed Ting (ACEAP/NSF).
Wide open spaces. The Atacama Desert is dry.
ALMA High Site (16,600′) and a few of the 66 radio dishes.
To learn more about the ACEAP program and our experiences (and to see even more pictures!), you can read my article at Sky & Telescope and watch videos by Kyle and Samara. You can also search for “ACEAP” on Facebook or “#ACEAP2018” on Twitter. I thank the NSF and the Albion College Faculty Development Committee for funding this trip!